I’d been thinking about buying a new camera for a while. One thing that rekindled my interest in photography was an episode of The Talk Show, season 1 that is, with James Duncan Davidson and he just recommended a DSLR, Canon or Nikon, and prime 50mm lens. No zoom just the prime. That way you concentrate on aperture, shutter speed, composition and less on zooming in and out. You could always use the manual zoom facility that is available with every pair of human legs. With my Pentax SF7, which I still have, I never selected different apertures, I just left it on full auto. The larger aperture of a prime lens will give you a shallower depth of field and allow you to take photos in lower light without a flash.

My Canon Powershot S50 camera has a small zoom, manual controls and a viewfinder. It still works well, takes great photos but I took it out the other Sunday and trying to see the screen on direct sunlight is impossible. The viewfinder is not an accurate representation of the image you get because you aren’t looking directly through the lens.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 did look interesting being small, having manual controls and interchangeable lenses. But the DMC-GF2 was released with a touch screen on the back instead of the physical controls. They took something that a professional photographer would use as a casual camera and dumbed it down.

The next camera I considered was the Olympus PEN E-PL2, again a Micro Four Thirds camera like the Panasonic. I’d get the Panasonic Lumix G 20mm F1.7 prime lens and possibly the digital viewfinder. The one thing that did put me off was all the scene modes and art filters that are built in. I can’t understand why manufacturers do that when it can all be done in Photoshop afterwards and without destroying the original image. I just want a basic camera with no extra bells and whistles.

Reading about Thorsten Overgaard using a Leica M9 and Steve Huff who is also a big M9 fan I have considered one. But I haven’t used a rangefinder camera before and the M9 is manual focus. It would be a huge amount to spend on something that I may not take to. Maybe when I’m 50 I’ll get one because I do love the design, the fact that Leica concentrate on keeping it simple and on the build quality.

After reading Steve Huff talking about the Leica X1 I even considered that. But it is expensive and there is no viewfinder.

I must have been reading Steve’s website when I saw the Fujifilm FinePix X100. I did a little background reading and… it should arrive tomorrow.

Sir Les PattersonThe online archive of Sir Leslie Colin Patterson. Wit, sage, raconteur, late Cultural Attaché to the Court of St James and Chairperson of the Australian Chapter of the International Cheese Board.